Dorothy Witch Slayer: Toto's End
by T. Cummins
Summary: Dorothy has been captured and there is seemingly no way to escape...or is there?


Dorothy Witch Slayer: Toto's End - T. Cummins 2005

Dorothy leaned against the iron bars of her cell with her forehead resting against the soothing coolness of the pitted, black metal. The tears she had shed for Toto's loss had finally begun to subside allowing the bubbling cauldron of her hatred to build within her soul, ripe and ready for eruption.

"Hey you!" The prisoner in the next cell muttered in a hoarse, dry voice.

Dorothy ignored the sound. She thought to herself that any man who emitted a stench such as his was clearly beneath her notice and she was suddenly thankful that she found herself in a dungeon with almost no lighting save for a few scattered braziers fixed upon the walls some distance away.

"Hey sweet thing. I'm talking to ya." The man pressed himself against the common bars separating the two cells. "I seen the way them fiends dealt with ya. You gots them riled up somethin fierce. Who might you be that they be treating ya to so much extra affection?" The man grinned, baring his four remaining rotted teeth.

Dorothy abruptly pushed herself away from the bars and turned to face the man with a dark scowl twisting her face. "Bite me."

The man nickered pleasantly in reply. "You are a sprite aint you?" He pressed his gnarled, whiskered face in close between the bars. "Hold on there. I knows you! I seen you someplace before. It's been a while holds on. You got a name like a pony as I recall. Something like Buffy or Donkey or some such thing."

Dorothy turned and padded over to her bunk then dropped heavily onto its worn, tattered mattress. "I don't know you and don't care to." She leaned backward falling against rough stone of the back wall with her arms crossed and her head bowed.

"Dorothy! That's it. I thought I knowed you. You that girl what's been giving the Witches such a do." The man began to cough a dry hacking cough that sounded full of dust and cobwebs. Once he finally cleared his throat he continued. "I could be of service to a spitfire such as yourself. For instance I know how we might gets our bodies out of this here gloomy doom. You interested?" The man waited for a response with his one good eye firmly fixed upon Dorothy's unmoving form.

"Give it up, Slyth. You must take me for a fool." Dorothy muttered.

"Wha…whatever do you mean, girl?" The man stepped back with a hint of surprise on his face.

"Slyth, you are the only person living or dead who has ever called me Donkey and lived to speak of it. I don't know what you are doing but its not going to work. Wasn't feeding my Toto to your dragon enough for you? Can't you leave me to die in peace?" Dorothy spoke with abject bitterness in her voice but at the same time quietly reached into the front pocket of her jeans and retrieved her lucky lighter.

"It was one of my greatest achievements my pretty." Slyth sneered as she suddenly transformed from the guise of the gruff old man to that of the tall and hauntingly beautiful Wicked Witch of the Southern South One Quarter. Slyth's power radiated a potent aura, the color of autumn violets, that illuminated the dungeon from corner to corner.

Dorothy slowly sat up and stood next to her bunk with the lighter held tightly behind her back. "I'm at your mercy, Slyth. What are you waiting for? Lets get this over with you cow. Or are you as stupid as you are ugly?"

Slyth was instantly enraged. Her face stretched into a fierce grimace and her aura brightened with her anger. Without warning she sprung into motion. As she lunged toward Dorothy Slyth dissolved the iron bars of the cells with the slightest gesture, screaming with all the air in her lungs.

With only a split second to react, Dorothy ducked under Slyth and set her cape on fire with a flick from her lighter. The highly combustible fabric burst into flames as Slyth went hurtling over Dorothy to crash against the stone wall of the cell. Dorothy quickly regained her feet and sprinted out of the cell and down the corridor with Slyth only a few steps away. As Dorothy reached the first guard she shouted to him.

"Your queen is on fire. Hurry and put out the flames!"

The dim witted guard immediately spun and fetched a pail of water, he had also been using as a spittoon, and flung it upon the flaming witch as she approached.

Dorothy laughed as she ran leaving behind the sounds of another Tyrant of Oz screaming in her final agony.

As Dorothy scampered under the open portcullis of Slyth's castle and out into the glorious spring afternoon she heard the sound of barking off in the distance. She ran up and over a nearby hill to find Toto and Slyth's dragon playing together in the daisy filled meadow. Dorothy stood with her hands on her hips and wide smile on her pretty face.

"I don't know how you managed that, Toto but I'm not going to question it. I've seen much stranger things in this nuthouse."

Dorothy casually strode down the hill. When Toto noticed her he raced to jump into her waiting arms. The dragon snorted a puff of smoke and patiently waited for the reunion to end before gesturing for Dorothy and Toto to climb his back so that he could fly them back home.

End.


End file.
